青少年枪击案成为美国人心中梦魇

当地时间5月26日，美国得克萨斯州尤瓦尔迪市执法部门就24日罗布小学发生的大规模枪击案举行简报会。

公共安全部南得克萨斯区域主任埃斯卡隆（Victor Escalon）表示，目前仍在收集枪击事件的信息，枪手的动机为调查重点之一，但还原犯罪现场需要大量的时间。

埃斯卡隆表示，枪手在进入校园前曾与校区警员对峙的说法不属实。他澄清称，枪手在进行杀戮前没有遇到任何学校职员，且当他进入校区时，学校“似乎没有上锁”或者“被解锁了”，相关详情正在调查中。

埃斯卡隆还说明了枪手作案当天的时间线。枪手在前往事发小学之前，曾从他的车辆上向街对面的行人开枪，随后当天上午11时28分左右发生撞车事故，枪手从车中跳出。有目击者看到枪手佩戴一支长枪和一个包，后来经证实，包中装有弹药。随后，枪手四处走动并向另外两人开火。在11时40分左右，枪手走进罗布小学西侧，并实施了枪击惨案。

美国哥伦比亚广播公司26日报道称，事发时围观者曾催促警方尽快冲进学校，嫌犯在学校停留超40分钟后才被击毙。/ CFP

Officials clarified the Uvalde shooting's timeline at a press briefing after suggesting varying reasons for the attack. They refused to answer any questions about the shooter's motives.

Agency officials now say there was no police officer on campus when the attacker first arrived — but did not explain why they had initially asserted that there was.

美国《华盛顿邮报》25日发布的数据显示，自1999年科罗拉多州哥伦拜恩高中枪击事件后，美国已有超过31.1万名儿童亲身经历校园枪支暴力事件，至少554名儿童和学校教职员工在校内遭枪击身亡或受伤。1999年4月，两名学生在哥伦拜恩高中开枪打死12名学生和一名教师，随后自杀。

这起群体性枪击事件后，美国迄今共计331所学校发生类似袭击，共造成185人死亡、369人受伤。本月24日，最近一起袭击发生于得克萨斯州尤瓦尔迪市罗布小学。一名18岁枪手射杀至少19名儿童和两名老师，随后被击毙。

根据美国琼斯母亲杂志（Mother Jones）的数据分析，近几十年来美国枪击事件的凶手正在呈现低龄化的趋势。在过去20年里死伤最大的5个校园枪击案里，凶手年龄均在17-20岁之间。其中有些人因为未到法定年龄，不能合法买酒，但却可以合法购买自动步枪。

Among America's deadliest classroom gun massacres over the past two decades, from Columbine High School in 1999 to Robb Elementary School this week, the age of shooters has been 17-20 years old.

Previous attempts to profile school shooting perpetrators by both the U.S. government and research institutes have described shooters as alienated, middle-class, White males who have access to guns. In fact, males account for almost 95 percent while the chances of them being Caucasian is 61 percent, according to a study of K-12 shootings by the Brookings Institution. Almost half of them report a history of rejection, with many experiencing various forms of bullying at school.

"I feel rejected, rejected, not so much alone, but rejected. I feel this way because the day-to-day treatment I get usually it's positive but the negative is like a cut, it doesn't go away really fast," wrote 16-year-old Evan Ramsey before going on a killing spree with a shotgun at Bethel Regional High School in 1997 that resulted in two deaths and two injuries.  

These K-12 shooters also tend to have a history of mental and psychological issues such as depression, bipolar disorder, and psychotic episodes. As criminologists James Densley and Jillian Peterson noted in The Conservation, most school shooters are motivated by generalized anger. Their path to violence involves self-hate and despair turned outward at the world, and they often communicate their intent to do harm in advance as a final, desperate cry for help.

专门研究美国枪支暴力问题的加州大学洛杉矶分校社会学教授阿斯托尔（Ron Avi Astor）向CGTN表示，两起案件与近年来发生的枪击事件在许多重要细节有着惊人相似之处，比如他们大多为18岁左右的少年，有着不同的心理问题并且痴迷于枪支。

In the case of Texas shooter Salvador Ramos, he has been described by the few friends he had as a loner prone to violence and irregular outbursts of emotion which were the results of bullying he experienced throughout his life. Before going on the rampage, Ramos wrote on Facebook to a teenage girl overseas that "I'm going to shoot my grandma" and then, after doing so, wrote "I shot my grandma," according to Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Less than 15 minutes before arriving at Robb Elementary School, he wrote, "I'm going to shoot an elementary school."

"What is striking to me personally is how similar the pattern seems to be with all the shooters and how many opportunities are missed in getting them help or stopping the violence before it occurs," Ron Avi Astor, professor of social welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, told CGTN.

"The obsession with guns, buying large numbers of military and other style guns at age 18, and long histories of difficulties with mental health, community, and school."

"What is striking to me personally is how similar the pattern seems to be with all the shooters and how many opportunities are missed in getting them help or stopping the violence before it occurs," Ron Avi Astor, professor of social welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, told CGTN.

"The obsession with guns, buying large numbers of military and other style guns at age 18, and long histories of difficulties with mental health, community, and school."

"I'm hoping we can push to get sensible gun laws to restrict military assault-type weapons, background checks, and laws that make it easier for law officials to take guns away from those with suicidal or homicidal obsessions," Astor says.

"However, most importantly, we need a deep discussion and reckoning on whom we'd like to become as a people and what our schools should look like so that we can provide support to students and individuals before these tragic events happen."

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